All posts tagged Twitter

Japanese anime fans are gearing up enthusiastically for this Friday evening, when they may tweet their way once again to a record, using their favorite magic word.

That word is “balus,” a made-up word roughly translated as “destruction.” It’s featured in the 1986 movie “Castle in the Sky,” from famed animation house Studio Ghibli, which is slated to air again on Friday night, on Nippon Television Network. Read More »

Japan’s first national election allowing Internet campaigning has already thrown up an interesting result — a major discrepancy in the issues considered by voters discussing the poll online and by the public at large. Read More »

If you died suddenly, would you ever get a chance to tell your family or your spouse how you really felt?

In response to that eternal question, a Japanese website called Proof of Life has a digital solution.
Created by 30-year-old programmer Takuya Kato in 2012 on the train during his daily commute, the website lets registered users save a simple text e-mail message to relatives, friends or significant others just in case. Read More »

Faced with the toughest times in its history, Sharp Corp. has plenty of reasons to be sour: the Japanese electronics maker logged a massive ¥545.35 billion ($5.39 billion) net loss last fiscal year and it’s so hard up for cash that it’s offering stakes in itself and licenses to its best technologies to its rivals. But if its painfully honest tweets are any indication, the company’s ability to poke fun at itself is still intact.

After NTT DoCoMo Inc. passed over Sharp’s Aquos Zeta smartphone for one of two coveted “Top Pick” slots for the mobile carrier’s summer lineup in favor of phones made by Samsung Electronics Co. and Sony Corp., Sharp sent out a flurry of self-deprecating tweets. For two months and counting, it has been harping on the pain of rejection. Read More »

SoftBank is now one step closer to acquiring Sprint Nextel Corp. If the U.S. Federal Communications Commission signs off on the deal, as expected, SoftBank founder and chief executive Masayoshi Son will soon become chairman of the No. 3 U.S. wireless carrier.

When pitching the deal to Sprint shareholders, Mr. Son argued that the practices that made SoftBank successful as Japan’s No. 3 carrier will transfer to the U.S. But one has to wonder, will Mr. Son’s Twitter habits go over well on the other side of the Pacific? Read More »

“Is it really okay for a 72-year-old to look this cool eating ice cream in front of a convenience store?” Twitter user Hiroo Mizuno asked followers on June 14.

The 72-year-old in question was neither a movie star nor a rock star. Rather, he was Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso, surrounded by body guards and chomping on an ice-cream bar in front of a Lawson’s convenience store.

Mr. Mizuno, who describes himself as a member of several Liberal Democratic Party support groups and who tweets under the handle komi1114 with around 4,600 followers, got a resounding response to his question: 7,737 retweets and 3,616 “favorites.”

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s decision to join negotiations for an emerging regional trade agreement gained kudos from the business community and many city dwellers. But it remains a hot-button issue, and the prime minister faces opposition from both the left and the right of the political spectrum.

That tension, and the complex nature of the opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, were on full display Monday after Mr. Abe wrote a bluntly-worded post on his widely-read Facebook page about TPP protestors. Read More »

Square Inc. is bringing its mobile payment service to Japan, its first market outside of North America, in an effort to break the country’s overwhelming dependence on cash and help small businesses accept credit cards without expensive point of sale systems.

“To be frank, it’s a very hard market to succeed in and, if we do succeed and we intend to, it really proves out a lot for Square. We intend to have equal or more success than we’ve had in the United States here in Japan,” said Square co-founder and chief executive Jack Dorsey at a news conference in Tokyo on Thursday.

Mr. Dorsey, who also co-founded Twitter, said the company decided to start its overseas push in Japan because of the size and maturity of the Japanese economy, the huge number of small and local businesses.

As the world watches nervously for signs of a possible North Korean missile launch, it’s Japan that turns out to have an itchy trigger finger.

Japanese officials from southern Kyushu to Yokohama near Tokyo have over the past week unleashed a series of false alarms saying the missiles have gone up, when they mistakenly pushed the button on pre-written warnings from their mobile phones and Twitter accounts.

The latest incident came on Saturday, when an aviation bureau official in Osaka mistakenly emailed out an alert that North Korea had launched a missile, instead of a query about a strong earthquake that shook in the morning. Read More »

Twitter Chief Executive Dick Costolo swooped in under the radar for a 48-hour landing in Tokyo this week. His first stop: to meet with the country’s newly elected and unconventionally social media savvy — at least by Japanese politician standards — Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Monday. During the meeting, they discussed one of the major modern-day differences between the U.S. and Japan: the use of Twitter during political campaigns. Read More »

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